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CAT | Marketing

As most of you already know, your opt-in bribe is that freebie that you offer to people in exchange for their name and email address. If your opt-in bribe sounds interesting enough, people will gladly fill their information in the form. For years, marketers offered a “special report” (or it’s much sexier cousin, the white paper) or an ebook. It eventually evolved into audios and videos. The typical freebie was downloadable because there was no cost to the marketer.

Then someone upped the game by offering a “Free DVD” (just pay shipping and handling). The shipping and handling usually covered the cost of the DVD and people got something tangible, something they could hold in their hot little hands. Unfortunately, whether they got a DVD or downloaded a video, the content was the same.

I think the real problem with ebooks is that most of them, particularly the freebies, really suck. The information is superficial at best. The “authors” use a huge font and lots of pictures to make it look like there’s more to the book than there is. (Kind of like those 100 word reports you had to do as a kid: “I liked the book because it was very, very, very, very, very, interesting. 13 words. 87 to go…”)

I remember attending a seminar given by a woman whose product was a series of letters (this was very early on in marketing days). Supposedly, these letters worked “like magic” to get a higher response from a direct mail list. She would put the letter up on the screen (using an overhead projector and transparencies – remember those?) and then quickly cover it up so people in the audience couldn’t see (and copy down) the letter. My conclusion? She had nuthin. She had somehow managed to stretch a few letters into a course on direct mail, but the heart of her product was the series of letters. She may have sold some, but I am sure her return rate was fairly high.

People search the internet for information. If you want people to become your fans and buy your stuff, then you can’t give them crap. They are looking for quality information. Your opt-in bribe, in whatever form you serve it, needs to show people that you have the information (or product) they are searching for. You need to be confident enough to share some of your best information. An ebook gives you the space you need to showcase your knowledge and the benefits you bring to your clients. And if “ebook” isn’t sexy enough, call it The Universally Magic - Banned in Boston -Secrets THEY Don’t Want You to Know – Underground and Undercover Chronicles. Just make sure you give people information they want and can use. They’ll come back for more.

Had a great laugh with my friend Jim this week. He asked if I was going to listen in on a webinar for a new (read: recycled) SEO technique. My exact words to him were: “Thanks. But I'll pass. I've given up on SEO. I think it is all bullshit because Google just goes and changes their algorithms at whim. You wind up chasing your tail.”

Jim and I had discussed his latest foray into SEO a few weeks before. He had paid a guy to create a ton of backlinks to his site (already on the first page of Google) to drive it to the very top. The backlinks were created and the home page of his site disappeared from Google search. Oh, it may have been somewhere on page 57 or so, but for all intents and purposes, it was gone. A couple of his back pages showed up on pages 2 and 3, but the home page was nowhere.

He contacted the guy, had him remove all those lovely backlinks, and lo and behold, his home page was once again on the first page of Google. Said Jim, “Lesson learned.”

So, imagine his absolute joy when he realized he was listening to a webinar extolling the virtues of paying someone to create a network of backlinks (and you could get it for only $47 a month!). We laughed ourselves silly.

Here’s the thing:
Google has already figured out the game. Google has already figured out EVERY game. It is Google. It knows all. It sees all. It controls the game.

A quick check with friends who have sites on the first page of Google (in various niches ranging from transmissions to vacation rentals) told me what I already suspected. Want to get on the first page of Google? Do this:

Have good, relevant content.
Don’t be a sales page.
It’s better to have some time behind your domain name rather than be brand new.
Use keywords, but don’t keyword “stuff.”

I’ll go one step further. Don’t be Google-dependent. If your traffic depends on being on the first page of Google, pay Google. Very simple.

But most of us don’t have businesses that need to be found by unknown prospects from all over the globe. Most of us have businesses with a specific target market.

If you address your target market, listen to their needs and give them what they want, they’ll find your site. Especially if you feature it prominently in your marketing materials.

It’s the same thing with as-yet-unknown prospects. Find where they hang out (online and offline) and market to them there.

Frankly, pinning your business’s future on your Google search rank is not a great plan. You need to be doing a lot more than hoping someone clicks on that link. You need a comprehensive marketing plan. Google is just one piece of the puzzle.

Google is a moving target. And it moves a lot faster than most of us. Do this: Provide a good product or service, understand your customer base, take care of your people. Then market! The Google ranking will take care of itself.

Your brand is not just a logo or the colors on your packaging. It's not your nickname, especially if it involves the words "diva", "goddess", "king" or "guy" (I really don't want to be defended in court by "The Litigation Guy").

Your brand is the entire experience people have when they deal with you and your company, from the advertisement they first see, your website, your product or service and most importantly, they way they are treated throughout the process.

I think one of the things that business people miss is they are so focused on trying to be clever or catchy or that all-elusive "viral" that they never put themselves in their customers' shoes. It's not about you. (Sorry.) It's about what you can do for your customer.

You have the opportunity to set yourself apart from every other business in your niche. Branding doesn't just happen. It is a conscious decision on your part to create a positive experience for your clients. So grab a pad of paper, a glass of wine or cup of tea and sit down someplace quiet to ask yourself these questions:

What problems do your clients bring you to resolve?
If you were that person, how would you like to be treated? What would the ideal process be?

How can you differentiate yourself from your competitors? Is it attitude? Is it amenities that you offer? Can you do something extra that shows an extra level of caring?

Here's an example. I took a pair of shoes to be re-soled. Most shoe repair shops look the same: a little dusty, pairs of shoes that have been repaired; some that have not been picked up. Shoes in various states of repair. The smell of glue and leather. This shop was no different.

The man took in my shoes, gave me a ticket and a time to come back. He had the personality of a small plastic soap dish. Not offensive, but nothing to make your head swing. His price was right in line with other shops. When I picked up the shoes, they had been re-soled and re-heeled. But they had not been polished.

Now I know that not every shoe repair place polishes the shoes as part of the service. But it takes about five minutes and makes the shoes look fantastic. It's a way of saying that they are proud of their work. It's an extra bit of service that could make them stand out from their competitors. This guy missed.

Yes, polishing the shoes is a small detail. But it is the type of thing you are looking for to start laying the foundation of your branding. What can you do to make the customers' experience with you different from their experience with anyone else? What can you do to make your customers' experience with you better? Think in these terms and your brand will emerge.

For any of you who read this blog, you know I am seriously lacking in this quality. (And yes, I am working on it.) The conventional wisdom with a blog is that you must post consistently, whether it is daily or a set number of times per week. I was really shooting for once a week. Sometimes I get up to as many as one post a month. 🙂

I am afraid this carries over to my marketing efforts, too. And, while not being consistent with blog posts won’t affect my business one way or another (at this point, anyway) being inconsistent in marketing will. Jay Conrad Levinson said “It is unfortunate but true that bad marketing done consistently is better than good marketing done inconsistently.” Or at least three different bloggers have said that he personally said exactly this to them. I’ve met Jay Conrad Levinson. For the record, he didn’t say it to me. I believe he said something like, "Could you pass me a napkin, please."

But the man is right. I have advised students not to start a marketing campaign they can’t afford to sustain. (Yes, of course it’s a matter of do as I say, not as I do.) I am about to start a small offline marketing campaign to speakers for my custom writing business. I have a list of over 5,000 names of speakers to market to. I am starting with a small mailing of 500 names that I will market to consistently once a month for a year. I have the campaign laid out. I have the budget money set aside.

Is this too small a group? It would be if I was marketing a $19.95 widget and needed 1,000 sales to make this worthwhile. But I am marketing a $5,000 and up custom writing job and I am looking for twelve people to sign on. If I mailed to 5,000 people, I may not be able to accommodate everyone who responds. Think about it. A one-half of one percent response rate is typical from a mailing. One percent of 5,000 is 50. One half of that is 25. I only want twelve new people. One person a month.

This is small. It is affordable. It is sustainable. It will bring about the results I need.

But what if you need more sales than that? What if you are selling a lower-priced item or service? And you can’t afford to consistently mail out to 5,000 people?

You need to market in stairsteps. OK. I have only had one cup of coffee so far this morning and that is the image I have come up with to illustrate this point. Let’s see if I can make it work.

Say you need 70 clients a month at $100 a pop. On a regular mailing campaign (yes, offline! OMG! How Old School!) you would need to mail out about 14,000 pieces (postcard, letter, flyer, whatever) to get a response rate of 70 people per month. But that would run you at least $14,000. So you’d be paying $14,000 for $7,000 in revenue. Not good. And no, you can’t make it up in volume. Now, if it was a monthly recurring revenue of $100 per person, you’d make your money back in the first two months, give or take. But your ongoing marketing costs could be crippling. (And stupid.) More so if that $100 per person was a one-shot deal. Less so if you have more than one product to sell.

Most small businesses I know don’t have $14,000 a month to throw at an advertising campaign. In fact, most small businesses I know don’t have $1,400 a month in their marketing budget. But you need to start somewhere.

My advice: Don’t try to climb to the top of the stairs in one shot. (Aha! You knew I’d get back to my analogy, didn’t you?) Climb a flight. Stabilize your breathing. Climb the next flight.

If you can only afford to send 700 pieces a month consistently, then do that. But do it every month. For a year. You will see additional customers and revenue. With the increased revenue, increase your marketing efforts the following year. So with 70 new customers, the following year you should be able to increase your marketing to 1,000 people per month or 1,500 people per month. Send out to that group consistently for a year. Rinse repeat.

I’m not going to get into cost of acquisition vs.conversion rates vs. increased revenues here. I’m not going to get into supplementing your offline marketing with online marketing to the same target market. (Yes, of course you should.) I am talking about making a realistic plan and carrying it out.

Just a note: If you are doing an online, no to low-cost marketing campaign, you still need to plan out your campaign, get it set to go and make sure it is something you can and will do consistently. Set up at least seven months’ worth (a year is better) of your keep-in-touch program, newsletters or whatever you are doing. Pre-set the send outs in your autoresponder or have a consistent date to send out the monthly, weekly or daily missives. (Daily? Really? You really think you are going to do something every freaking day?? Come on. This is me you are talking to.)

Here’s the point:

The trick is to set aside the money and plan out your campaign before you start. Too many business people run out of money and/or steam after two or three mailings. Don’t count on making enough money from the first two months of your campaign to finance the rest of it. If your budget won’t allow you to do at least seven mailings, then you need to cut the amount of people you are mailing to. If you have no marketing budget, you aren’t in business. You are slowly going out of business. Yes, there are a ton of free ways to market, (I’ll get into that in the next post which should come about some time in the near or distant future) but you will get further, farther faster with some jing-aling in your marketing budget.

Being consistent is a matter of planning ahead. No will power needed. I like that.

I've been receiving emails from a man who apparently belongs to one of the networking groups I belong to. If I have met him, I don't remember him, but he has my name and email and I am now on his list. Apparently he's a roofer.

I have been studiously deleting his emails without opening them and this past week realized who he was. So the first email I open from him tells how he closed a sale. Brags actually. "I was going in there asking them to cut a check for $3,000 on upgrades they didn't need."

Wow. Wrong on so many levels.

I suppose he wants us to admire his "marketing prowess". But I am thinking in an economy where people are struggling, it's more than a little shitty to rip people off for upgrades they didn't need. (The basic roofing job was covered by insurance.)

I also think that if you are ripping people off, you really shouldn't tell other people about it. That's kind of like getting away with a bank robbery and then yakkiing about it in your neighborhood bar.

And gee, let's put it in writing and send it out to over 100 people.

And finally, let's send it to people that this guy hopes to get referral business from. Because the first thing I am going to do is refer a friend or client to someone who I know rips people off. Not.

This email rates a big WTF. And, as you can tell, it pissed me off. What a wanker.

Here's a marketing tip: If you are ripping off your customers, it is probably best not to write that in an email and send it to people you want to do business with. OY!

First of all, one of the main reasons people search the internet (consistently in the top 3 in studies) is they are looking for information. The internet is a convenient research tool, whether you are looking for a recipe, a neighbor’s tax records, how to build a solar collector or how to start your own country. You can find anything on the internet – if you know where and how to look.

But, the internet has its inefficiencies. Because of the sheer volume of information that is available, it is often difficult to find the specific information you are searching for. Sometimes you find pieces of the information you need, but not the whole picture and usually not all in one place. In addition, much of the information is undocumented or comes from questionable sources.

The beauty of an information product is it gives people what they want – the information they are looking for, explained in a way they can put to use, all in one place.

It also gives the marketer what he/she needs: a chance to display his knowledge and capabilities to a targeted market. An information product provides credibility to the author, sets that person up as an expert in that particular topic and sets them apart from their competition.

People learn in various ways – some learn better by reading or by listening or by doing. Information can be conveyed in those various forms and an information product can be made more marketable by putting the same information in various formats to help people learn in the way that’s easiest for them.
Last, but not least, information products are cheap to produce. In downloadable form, they cost nothing. CDs and DVDs can be produced for a dollar or two. Books can be printed, one at a time, for about $8.00. So, as a giveaway or a promotion, an information product’s no to low cost is perfect. As an item that is sold, the margins are incredible.

Whether you are using information as a product to sell in itself or as a list-building tool or a way to warm up the relationship with your clients and prospects, from bricks and sticks to point and click, information products are an all-around winner.

I was reading a book by the late Robert B. Parker last night, author of the Spenser series, among others. He wrote crime/adventure-type novels which are, as a genre, kind of like candy for the mind. Like his character Spenser (with an s, like the poet) he had a vast knowledge of the esoteric and eclectic and a facility and playfulness with words that were the result of a life time of working with these building blocks. He had a mastery of his craft.

I spend too much time on Facebook and other internet sites, receive too many emails, sit through too many seminars where I am subjected to the marketing shouts from "instant experts" -- people who are better marketers than masters of what they are selling; people who have more self-confidence than they should (or maybe no self-confidence at all and have bought into the "fake it til you make it" mode); and people who have lost jobs in their industry and now have bought a course that shows them how to become an "instant expert" and teach others. (Yes, I am enjoying the irony of the fact that I sell a course that helps people do just this.) In short, people marketing solutions or partial solutions to non-existing problems.

I have studied marketing for decades; I am only about seven years into internet marketing. And I'm ready to hang up the whole business. I see a sea of carnival barkers, shouting, thumping their chests, bullying and intimidating people into buying. I see the gentle sheeple, sharing the same platitudes of self-worth and motivation. I see the more cynical marketers spouting those platitudes and then twisting the messages so that people will feel badly about themselves and buy.

What I don't see are leaders. I don't see people who are taking time out to just THINK. I don't see marketers stopping to ask, "Will this product actually HELP anyone?" I don't see anyone leading the charge with anything new or revolutionary. It's just the same old stuff, recycled, repackaged and resold to an audience that is hoping that this will be the Golden Ticket.

I grind out course manuals for national speakers for a living. I am part of the problem. Some of the speakers have good information. Some do not. There are many speakers I do not work with -- apparently even I have a line which I won't cross. (Who knew?) After reading Parker's novel last night, I knew I wanted to do something better. Was it great literature? No. Was it expertly written? Yes. And I've decided I want to spend my time with people who care about their craft, people who care about what they do and the effect it has on others. Most of all, I want to leave the shouting, thumping instant experts behind and find the people who are quietly DOING and doing well.

My friend Bob Burg has a post on his blog (burg.com)that got me thinking (as he usually does) on using foul language and mean humor in speaking, blog posts, on social media sites, etc. My language is not pure so I can't comment on that.... (my mother did teach me better, I just didn't listen). I did have some thoughts on using humor. I worked (briefly) as a stand up comic and I can tell you a lot of stuff that DOESN'T work when it comes to humor. But I'll save that for a longer post. These are just some quick thoughts:

Humor is very tricky -- it's not only extremely subjective but if your timing is off, it just doesn't work. What makes something funny is the revealed truth within the statement -- that's why the half-apology "just kidding" after a stinging remark doesn't begin to mitigate what was said. You can poke fun at yourself, but as a speaker you have to be careful not to undermine your standing as an expert.

You can also poke fun at a situation. This is about the safest way to go, since the revealed truth doesn't "hurt" anyone. The beautiful thing about humor is that it can reveal a shared experience (we all know what it's like to ALWAYS choose the slowest checkout line) that helps the audience bond with you as the speaker and with each other.

Humor is very tricky -- it's not only extremely subjective but if your timing is off, it just doesn't work. What makes something funny is the revealed truth within the statement -- that's why the half-apology "just kidding" after a stinging remark doesn't begin to mitigate what was said.

You can poke fun at yourself, but as a speaker you have to be careful not to undermine your standing as an expert. You can also poke fun at a situation. This is about the safest way to go, since the revealed truth doesn't "hurt" anyone. The beautiful thing about humor is that it can reveal a shared experience (we all know what it's like to ALWAYS choose the slowest checkout line) that helps the audience bond with you as the speaker and with each other.

There's a huge difference between club humor and humor intended for general audiences. There's also a matter of how you want to be known or your "brand". I don't work with people if I need to walk on eggshells around them. Part of my "brand" is that I tell it like it is. (I had to make it part of my brand -- I don't have enough filters between my brain and my mouth.) Can you use strong language and weird humor? Yes. Just know that it will affect who you work with and therefore your earning power.

Sometimes all the stuff swirling around in my brain (yes, like the proverbial running toilet) comes together and I realize that I’ve been storing information, waiting for a few more pieces to fall into place resulting in a flash of brilliance – or at least a strong boot in the pants.

A trip to a new dentist was the final chunk in a puzzle that had been swimming in my head for the past week. It started with a Bob Burg seminar on referral marketing (His book Endless Referrals is a marketing classic – if you don’t have it, get it.) Bob does perhaps one of the best Zig Ziglar impressions in the speaking industry and he tells a story about overcoming the objection of cost. When a prospect says that your price is too high, Zig says to respond with “Are you concerned about the cost or the price? Because price is a one-time thing and cost is a lifetime thing. Don’t you really want the best possible, lowest cost?”

Another way of saying that is, “You get what you pay for.” You can buy a cheaper item, but will it last? Will it cost you more in time wasted on future repairs or replacement?

Now for my trip to the dentist. I found this dentist through an ad in a local free magazine. They have a number of locations and a very large full-color ad. I had a first time visit for a checkup, cleaning and x-rays. The office had a lot of high tech equipment and every patient area (not individual rooms, which made me glad they weren’t gynecologists) had a huge 50” flat screen HDTV. The dental tech did the x-rays and some checking, the doctor came in and poked around for five minutes. Turns out my beautiful smile is hiding some gum disease, a cavity, a crown that needs replacing and all sorts of stuff. In fact, by the time they were done talking with me, I was scared my teeth were about to fall out of my head. FORTUNATELY, they had this really nifty software that gave me a computerized printout of all the recommended work which came to somewhere in the neighborhood of $8,500.

Once they had worked me down off the ceiling, and I had worked out several things I could do with $8,500 (rehab a kitchen, buy a used car, spend a month in a villa in Italy with a twenty-something pool boy), I told them I might be back but I needed to get two more estimates. (Hell, I was a rehabber, I ALWAYS get three estimates for large jobs.)

But here’s the real problem: I didn’t have any trust in this dentist – it was a first time visit. The dental tech caused me physical pain while the estimate caused me physical, mental and emotional pain. They used fear tactics, which may or may not be justified, as a motivator. And they asked for a not small amount of money. Now, in the grand scheme of things, $8,500 for all that dental work may be a great price. But for someone planning to spend a few hundred dollars, it was a bit of a jump. (And I would still rather spend the money on a villa in Italy and a pool boy.)

Here’s where it fell into place for me: I charge a lot of money for what I do. Not as much as some people; not nearly as much as others; but more than average. I am very good at writing manuals and courses for people. I am fortunate in that most of my clients are referred to me and that I have built a good reputation in my particular niche industry. HOWEVER, if you do not know me or my work and you hear my stated price, your heart may skip a beat or two.

The trip to the dentist pointed out the flaw in my own marketing and positioning. The work I do is extremely subjective. It takes me, on average, 4-6 weeks to create a manual for someone. I write manuals in a narrative style. My manuals read a bit like novels. I do my best to capture my client’s “voice” and they are written in very “me to you” tone. I have a system that I use and it creates a solid product. But, there is the chance that the client won’t like the work I’ve done. It’s very subjective and as in many things, when it comes to writing, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

So, as a marketer, how do I justify my price and prepare my clients for what their end result will be? It really comes down to communicating my expertise and the time involved and this is where I think the dental office made its mistake.

There were no testimonials from patients anywhere in the office. No pictures of the dentist (any of them) with a happy teenager on the day she got her braces off. There were no diplomas on the wall (if I had seen an Ivy League diploma hanging on the wall, at least I would have known I was paying off some school loans). No articles about the doctors or the office. There was NOTHING in the office that told me why this dentist was different from any other dentist in town and why his prices were at least twice as high as other dentists. In fact, I had the distinct impression that the dentists rotated through the various offices much like temps.

I’ll pay for quality work. So price really wasn’t the issue. I like my teeth; I want to keep them. But there was nothing in my experience in the dental office that made me feel like I could trust that I was getting top quality dental care, care that was over and above what I could get literally across the street for a lot less money. In fact, I will not be sure I need all that recommended care until I see a second dentist. My trust level with that office is non-existent.

When you are selling anything, especially high ticket items, you need to build trust with your prospects and build value into your presentation, be it a web page, an ad or face-to-face. What makes you different from everybody else out there? Do you have references (testimonials) from credible third parties? What are the future costs that you will save people down the road? How does using you (and paying more money) benefit your client in the long run? Until you can answer those questions, your prospects are going to shop you on price. Learn to speak in terms of cost, not price.

I was doing a talk on marketing yesterday for one of my favorite groups of people, the Sarasota Internet Marketing Master Mind. I was going through my target market profile and reached the section that asked what income level your prospects had. I pointed to the top line that said "Under $20,000" and said, "If you are marketing to people who make less than $20,000 per year, STOP. They don't have any money."

Yes, they buy groceries and gas, hot dogs and team sweatshirts and other small ticket items. But think about how many of those small ticket items you are going to have to sell to people who honestly have to think about spending $30 or $40. Now extrapolate out a bit. People who are making under $30,000 a year are going to have a hard time spending $2,000 for your product. People making $50,000 per year will think hard about spending $8,000 or $10,000 for a discretionary item. Conversely, people making $200,000 per year won't trust something that they perceive as too low in price. (We like them.)

The upshot is that price is relative to income. If your target market makes $35,000 per year, the price of your product or service needs to be affordable for them.

"So Barb," you are saying. "Want to take another swing at the title of this blog post?"

Nope.

I'm a little bit dyslexic and a big fan of doing things backwards. Say you want to make $5,000 per month. Now, maybe you have a little ebook that sells for $47. You're going to have to sell over 100 of those ebooks every month to make your $5,000. That's not easy to do. It's not impossible by any means, but MAN OH MAN it's a lot of work. But $47 is about the right price for this particular industry. In fact, compared to its competitors, it's a little bit on the high side. The market set the price for the product.

What got me thinking about this? I got an invitation to a seminar with a comedy writer from the Tonight Show. That's about the best credit you can have in comedy writing. So a three hour session with someone who is one of the top people in his profession was $199. Two hundred bucks. That's like sitting down with Stephen Hawking or Colin Powell and buying them lunch in return. And that got me thinking...

Most people who want to be comedians do not have much money. In fact, most working comedians don't have very much money. Two hundred dollars is a lot for them to shell out. EVEN TO TALK TO THE BEST IN THE BUSINESS. The industry limits the amount of money that can be charged to the customer.

And here's where I realized the whole equation is backwards. Instead of pricing what you're selling to meet what your market can afford, CHANGE MARKETS. Change industries if you have to. Work with people who can afford to pay you what you need to earn. Go back to the example of needing $5,000 per month. I can sell 110 ebooks at $47 each or I can write three custom ebooks for private clients. Yeah, it's active income vs the supposedly passive return of an ebook. But marketing the ebook is active work, too and trying to sell 100 in a month without a big name is hard work. Trust me.

Instead of writing business plans for small business start-ups (which have no money), write business plans for large corporations. Instead of designing clothes for the average woman, design high end stuff. Instead of charging $25 an hour, find a clientele that is willing to pay you $250 an hour.

Maybe not the best of examples, but I've had an entire glass of wine. (Big night!) But do you get what I'm saying here? If you're not making the money you need to make, stop pricing your goods and services to fit your market. Find a market that can pay you what you need to make.